No Good About Goodbye

A smart, funny pile-up at the intersection of Surrender Your Sons, Grasshopper Jungle, and a pulp spy adventure.

Like Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, if Simon's mom were a vodka-soaked spy and grown assassins were trying to kill Simon.

Fifteen-year-old Ian Racalmuto's life is in ruins after an embassy raid in Algiers. His mother, a vodka-drunk spy, is dead. His brother, a diplomat, has vanished. And, he's lost a cremation urn containing a smartphone that could destroy the world.

Forced to live with his cantankerous grandfather in Philadelphia, Ian has seven days to find his brother and secure the phone-all while adjusting to life in a troubled urban school and dodging assassins sent to kill him.

Ian finds an ally in William Xiang, an undocumented immigrant grappling with poverty, a strict family, and abusive classmates. They make a formidable team, but when one boy develops a secret crush on the other, it threatens to ruin their friendship. Will it roll up Ian's mission and derail a heist they've planned at the State Department?

Like a dime store pulp adventure of the past, No Good About Goodbye is an incautious, funny, coming-of-age tale for mature teens and adult readers.

Rot Gut Pulp: Entertainment, not Genius.

No Good About Goodbye is a work of fiction. It is not intended to be an authentic depiction of lived experiences, and may contain difficult subject matter and questionable tropes, themes, and language. Not everybody will see themselves or their communities reflected, and it may be a poor fit for readers seeking solicitous representation. Sensitivities vary from person to person, and neither the author nor the publisher offer further advisories.